Dendrimers: Exploring Their Wide Structural Variety and Applications

[Abstract] Dendrimers constitute a distinctive category of synthetic materials that bear resemblance to proteins in various aspects, such as discrete structural organization, globular morphology, and nanoscale dimensions. Remarkably, these attributes coexist with the capacity for facile large-scale production. Due to these advantages, the realm of dendrimers has undergone substantial advancement since their inception in the 1980s. Numerous reviews have been dedicated to elucidating this subject comprehensively, delving into the properties and applications of quintessential dendrimer varieties like PAMAM, PPI, and others. Nevertheless, the contemporary landscape of dendrimers transcends these early paradigms, witnessing the emergence of a diverse array of novel dendritic architectures in recent years. In this review, we aim to present a comprehensive panorama of the expansive domain of dendrimers. As such, our focus lies in discussing the key attributes and applications of the predominant types of dendrimers existing today. We will commence with the conventional variants and progressively delve into the more pioneering ones, including Janus, supramolecular, shape-persistent, and rotaxane dendrimers.J.M. acknowledges Xunta de Galicia for its research grant Proxectos de Excelencia (No. ED431F 2022/02) and RYC2019-027842-I from MCIN/AEI/ 10.13039/501100011033 and “ESF: Investing in Your Future”. I.J.G. acknowledges the Spanish Ministry of Universities for a Beatriz Galindo (BG22/000147) and Maria Zambrano grant (RSU.UDC.MZ09) transferred by the European Union’s Next GenerationEU. A.C. acknowledges financial support from grants RYC2020-030183-I and PID2021-127002NA-I00, funded by MCIN/AEI/ 10.13039/501100011033 and “ESF: Investing in Your Future”.Xunta de Galicia; ED431F 2022/0

Automated semantic annotation of rare disease cases: a case study

MOTIVATION: As the number of clinical reports in the peer-reviewed medical literature keeps growing, there is an increasing need for online search tools to find and analyze publications on patients with similar clinical characteristics. This problem is especially critical and challenging for rare diseases, where publications of large series are scarce. Through an applied example, we illustrate how to automatically identify new relevant cases and semantically annotate the relevant literature about patient case reports to capture the phenotype of a rare disease named cerebrotendinous xanthomatosis. RESULTS: Our results confirm that it is possible to automatically identify new relevant case reports with a high precision and to annotate them with a satisfactory quality (74% F-measure). Automated annotation with an emphasis to entirely describe all phenotypic abnormalities found in a disease may facilitate curation efforts by supplying phenotype retrieval and assessment of their frequency. Availability and Supplementary information: http://www.usc.es/keam/Phenotype Annotation/. Database URL: http://www.usc.es/keam/PhenotypeAnnotation

Transient Receptor Potential Melastatin 8 Channel (TRPM8) Modulation: Cool Entryway for Treating Pain and Cancer

TRPM8 ion channels, the primary cold sensors in humans, are activated by innocuous cooling (<28 °C) and cooling compounds (menthol, icilin) and are implicated in sensing unpleasant cold stimuli as well as in mammalian thermoregulation. Overexpression of these thermoregulators in prostate cancer and in other life-threatening tumors, along with their contribution to an increasing number of pathological conditions, opens a plethora of medicinal chemistry opportunities to develop receptor modulators. This Perspective seeks to describe current known modulators for this ion channel because both agonists and antagonists may be useful for the treatment of most TRPM8-mediated pathologies. We primarily focus on SAR data for the different families of compounds and the pharmacological properties of the most promising ligands. Furthermore, we also address the knowledge about the channel structure, although still in its infancy, and the role of the TRPM8 protein signalplex to channel function and dysfunction. We finally outline the potential future prospects of the challenging TRPM8 drug discovery fieldWe thank Gregorio Fernández-Ballester for the figure of the TRPM8 homology model. Funding from the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (BFU 2012-39092-C02; SAF2015-66275-C2-R) and the Generalitat Valenciana (PROMETEO II/2014/011).Peer reviewe

SW @ SPAIN

Executive Summary: This report provides information about the current state of the art in Semantic Web research in Spain. The contents of this report are mainly based on the information that was gathered during the workshop "Ontologías y Web Semántica 2005", which was held in Santiago de Compostela in November 2005, and the contributions that members from most of the research groups working in Semantic-Webrelated areas in Spain have provided. The field of Semantic Web is quite widespread in Spain, with important groups developing methods, techniques and tools to support different areas: Ontological Engineering, semantic extraction and annotation from heterogeneous sources, semantic search engines, personalisation and Semantic Web Services

Study of the thermal behavior of the aluminium dust stabilized with gypsum

[ES]El polvo de aluminio (pAl) es un residuo peligroso procedente de la metalurgia secundaría del aluminio. Con objeto de reducir la reactividad del mismo, en el CENIM se ha desarrollado un proceso de estabilización/solidificación mediante su fraguado con yeso. En este trabajo se presenta el estudio del comportamiento térmico del pAl estabilizado con el yeso, con el fin de establecer la influencia del residuo en las reacciones de hidratación/deshidratación del yeso durante el proceso del fraguado, a saber: deshidratación parcial del sulfato calcico dihidrato, deshidratación del hemihidrato, deshidratación del hidróxido de aluminio y transformación de anhidrita soluble en anhidrita insoluble. Asimismo se ha estudiado la cinética asociada a cada una de las reacciones anteriormente mencionadas mediante Calorimetría Diferencial de Barrido.[EN]The aluminium dust is a hazardous waste from the secondary aluminium remelting industry. A stabilization/solidification process was developed at CENIM with the aim of decreasing its reactivity. Gypsum was used as a binder material. Tliis work summarizes the study of the thermal behavior of the aluminium dust stabilized with gypsum, in order to establish the influence of the residue in the reactions of hydration/dehydration of the gypsum during the hardening process, namely: partial dehydration of calcium sulphate dihydrate, dehydration of calcium sulphate hemi'hydrate, dehydration of aluminium hydroxide and anhydrite soluble/anhydrite insoluble transformation. The activation energy associated to all those reactions was determined by Differential Scanning Calorimetry.Los autores agradecen a la Consejería de Educación de la Comunidad de Madrid la financiación del proyecto (07M/0136/2000) y a la empresa Recuperación y Reciclaje Román por el apoyo a esta investigación.Peer reviewe

Assessment of parental asthma knowledge with the Newcastle Asthma Knowledge Questionnaire

Objetivo: determinar el grado de conocimiento sobre asma de los padres de niños/as asmáticos seguidos en una consulta de Neumología infantil. Material y método: estudio descriptivo y transversal, mediante encuestas autocumplimentadas. Los conocimientos sobre asma se evaluaron usando el Newcastle Asthma Knowledge Questionnaire (NAQK). Se realizó el cuestionario a padres y otros familiares de niños asmáticos atendidos en la consulta de Neumología infantil de un hospital terciario. Las encuestas fueron realizadas entre septiembre y noviembre de 2009. Resultados: la muestra quedó conformada por 344 cuestionarios. Un 72,7% fue contestado por la madre del paciente, un 14,9% por el padre, en un 6,7% fueron ambos progenitores los que rellenaron el cuestionario y en un 5,8% fue otra persona diferente. Los pacientes fueron 203 niños (59%) y 141 niñas (41%) con una edad media de 8±4 años. La puntuación media fue de 18,5±3,7 sobre 31. Conclusiones: nuestros encuestados han obtenido mayor puntuación media en comparación con muestras similares en otros estudios. A pesar de ello, consideramos que una intervención educativa puede mejorar los conocimientos sobre asma y contribuir a disminuir la morbilidad de esta enfermedad crónica.Objective: to determine the level of asthma knowledge in parents of asthmatic children followed in a pediatric respiratory ward. Material and methods: descriptive and cross-sectional study. Asthma Knowledge was assessed using the Newcastle Asthma Knowledge Questionnaire (NAQK). We performed a questionnaire to parents and other relatives of asthmatic children treated in the pediatric pulmonary ward of a tertiary hospital. The surveys were conducted between September and November 2009. Results: the sample consisted of 344 questionnaires. The mothers answered 72.7%, the fathers 14.9%, both parents filled the questionnaire in 6.7% and 5.8% were filled by a different person. Patients were 203 boys (59%) and 141 girls (41%) with a mean age of 8 ± 4 years. The average score was 18.5 ± 3.7 points out of 31. Conclusions: our respondents have obtained higher mean score compared to similar samples in other studies. Nevertheless we believe that an educational intervention can improve asthma knowledge and help decrease the morbidity of this chronic disease

Sociology and hierarchy of voids: A study of seven nearby CAVITY galaxy voids and their dynamical CosmicFlows-3 environment

The present study addresses a key question related to our understanding of the relation between void galaxies and their environment: the relationship between luminous and dark matter in and around voids. Aims. To explore the extent to which local Universe voids are empty of matter, we study the full (dark+luminous) matter content of seven nearby cosmic voids that are fully contained within the CosmicFlows-3 volume. Methods. We obtained the matter-density profiles of seven cosmic voids using two independent methods. These were built from the galaxy redshift space two-point correlation function in conjunction with peculiar velocity gradients from the CosmicFlows-3 dataset. Results. The results are striking, because when the redshift survey is used, all voids show a radial positive gradient of galaxies, while based on the dynamical analysis, only three of these voids display a clear underdensity of matter in their center. Conclusions. This work constitutes the most detailed observational analysis of voids conducted so far, and shows that void emptiness should be derived from dynamical information. From this limited study, the Hercules void appears to be the best candidate for a local Universe pure “pristine volume”, expanding in three directions with no dark matter located in that void.Institut Universitaire de FranceCentre National D'etudes SpatialesInstituto de Salud Carlos III Spanish GovernmentEuropean Commission PID2020-224414GB-I00 PID2020-113689GB-I00Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion (MCIN)Agencia Estatal de Investigacion (AEI)European Social Fund (ESF) 20215AT016 CEX2020-001058-MCentro Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas (CSIC) under the PIE project KR4598/2-1German Research Foundation (DFG) PID2019-105602GBI00Junta de AndaluciaSpanish Government FQM108MCIN/AEIEuropean Union NextGenerationEUAgencia Estatal de Investigacion Espanola (AEI)Center for Forestry Research & Experimentation (CIEF) CEX2021-001131-SEuropean Union-Next Generation EU FundsState Research Agency (AEI-MCINN) of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation under the grant "The structure and evolution of galaxies and their central regions" - Ministry of Universitie

Evolutionary origins of metabolic reprogramming in cancer

Metabolic changes that facilitate tumor growth are one of the hallmarks of cancer. These changes are not specific to tumors but also take place during the physiological growth of tissues. Indeed, the cellular and tissue mechanisms present in the tumor have their physiological counterpart in the repair of tissue lesions and wound healing. These molecular mechanisms have been acquired during metazoan evolution, first to eliminate the infection of the tissue injury, then to enter an effective regenerative phase. Cancer itself could be considered a phenomenon of antagonistic pleiotropy of the genes involved in effective tissue repair. Cancer and tissue repair are complex traits that share many intermediate phenotypes at the molecular, cellular, and tissue levels, and all of these are integrated within a Systems Biology structure. Complex traits are influenced by a multitude of common genes, each with a weak effect. This polygenic component of complex traits is mainly unknown and so makes up part of the missing heritability. Here, we try to integrate these different perspectives from the point of view of the metabolic changes observed in cancer.This work was supported in JPL’s lab by Grant PID2020-118527RB-I00 funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011039; Grant PDC2021-121735-I00 funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011039 and by the “European Union Next Generation EU/PRTR.”, the Regional Government of Castile and León (CSI234P18 and CSI144P20). SCLl was the recipient of a Ramón y Cajal research contract from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness and was supported by grant RTI2018-094130-B-100 funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011039 and by “ERDF A way of making Europe.” RCC and AJN are funded by fellowships from the Spanish Regional Government of Castile and León. NGS is a recipient of an FPU fellowship (MINECO/FEDER). MJPB is funded by grant PID2020-118527RB-I00 funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011039. J.C. is partially supported by grant GRS2139/A/20 (Gerencia Regional de Salud de Castilla y León) and by the Instituto de Salud Carlos III (PI18/00587 and PI21/01207), co-financed by FEDER funds, and by the “Programa de Intensificación” of the ISCIII, grant number INT20/00074. We thank Phil Mason for English language support